Chapter 9 - The Journey to Sucre, Part 1
The bus ride was relatively pleasant considering what they had expected. Brick looked out the window of the big bus and said, "This is neat!"
They traveled along the Pan American Highway towards Oruro, the halfway point in their trip to Sucre. Buttercup took the opportunity to take a nap. Blossom sat thumbing through the stack of papers Brick had grabbed from their shipping box. She read everything, trying to learn all she could. Sitting next to her, Butch peered over her shoulder. He pointed to one of the pages and asked, "What's that say?"
Blossom smiled and answered, "It says 'Bolivia & Main Cities/Sucre'."
He nodded. "Oh, that's where we're going, huh?"
"Well, we have the stop-over in Oruro, first, but then yeah, we're headed to Sucre," Blossom answered.
"What letter is that?" Butch asked, pointing to the ampersand.
"It's not really a letter. It's called an ampersand. It's a short way to write the word 'and'. It's kind of like cheating when you write." she explained.
Butch grinned. "Neat!"
Brick leaned over from the seat behind them. He listened in on Blossom's explanation of the ampersand.
"OK, what's that word?" he asked, pointing to a different word on the page.
"'History'," Blossom replied. "It's like the past, stuff that happened before that was important or maybe influential."
For the rest of the trip, Blossom was in her element. She managed to teach the Boys the alphabet, the phonics of the letters, how to recognize their own names and how to read simple sentences. They were both thoroughly engrossed in what she had to teach them, and they learned quickly.
Blossom did not, however, lose track of a man standing at the front of the bus. He held a magazine and appeared to thumb through it nonchalantly, but Blossom had seen him before.
She paused at one point in her lesson with the Boys and leaned forward over the pages as if studying them intensely. She motioned the Boys to come closer and spoke to them quietly.
"Can you guys still hear me?" she asked.
Confused by the question, but sensing something was wrong, the Boys both nodded.
"Don't look up, but did you notice the guy at the front? Holding the magazine, Hawaiian shirt's pretty obviously not from around here?" she asked them.
Again, the Boys nodded. "Why?" Brick asked.
"He's been following us ever since Professor Gershwin changed our money," she answered. "I don't know why or who he is, but I don't like him following us."
"What do you wanna do?" Butch asked.
"Get rid of him is MY suggestion." Brick answered.
"Bingo," Blossom agreed. "Not now, though, we'll have to wait until we get to Oruro. Then let's lose him. If we can't lose him, we make sure he can't keep following us."
"No problema." Butch said.
"Consider it done." Brick added. He looked out the window and saw their destination bus station. "We're here."
Blossom gathered up all their papers as Brick woke Buttercup. The four got off the bus, ignoring the man as they passed him, headed out of the station, and turned a corner. Buttercup noticed the man behind them. "Somebody's following us." she whispered.
Blossom nodded. "We know. We're going to deal with him right now." She picked up speed in her walk and the other three followed her lead. The man sped up as well.
Around the next corner, Blossom began to run. The others did as well. The man behind them, seeing them start to run, took off after them. They ran even faster, then quickly turned down an alley. They stopped and took up positions to intercept the man as he came around into the alley. As he came into view, Blossom tripped him up as Brick shoved him forward. Butch and Buttercup pounced on him and pummeled him. He cried out for mercy as Buttercup dragged him to his feet. She and Butch then pinned him to the wall.
"Why are you following us!?" Blossom demanded.
" Dios mío!" he cried. " No me dañe!"
"Hable inglés, por favor." Butch instructed with a nasty grin.
"You speak Spanish?" the man asked Butch.
"Wow, and you speak English." Brick replied sarcastically.
The man's face twisted into an evil look. "You were told you would be watched, weren't you?"
"Watched, not followed!" Butch shouted.
"Who are you?" Blossom demanded. "And where's Bubbles and Boomer?"
The man shook his head slowly. "Truthfully, I don't know. None of us knows their location. They will be moved continuously to keep you from finding them until we WANT you to find them."
"What's the deal? Why is Mojo doing all this? Seems a bit much, even for him." Buttercup growled.
The man laughed and replied, "It is the same game as always. He just didn't plan on YOU!" He glared and pointed at the Boys. "He was quite surprised to see you back. That's why he grabbed your brother when the opportunity presented itself. Now, the task he has to accomplish will be easier since he can deal with all SIX of you at once!"
"What 'task'?" Brick started. "I swear we'll..."
The man cut him off. "To be rid of you, what do you think? You are freaks in this world, genetic misfits. I have seen what the other two are capable of. I can only guess that you are the same as they are."
"So what's in it for you and whoever else thinks they can stop us?" Blossom demanded.
"Ahh, but there is where I will say no more. I will leave it at this: 'It is better to be at the right-hand of the devil than to be in his path.' Oh, and there's a bit of a twist here. He has informed the military forces of this country that you four are now here and plan terrorist actions here. You will have more than us to worry about. Let the game begin!" He broke into fits of laughter.
Buttercup became enraged. "Game over for you, mister!"
She shot upwards, a neon green streak following her rapid ascend, and grabbed a clothesline from an overhanging balcony. She and Butch zipped around him in a blur of dark and pastel green. The man was completely wrapped up when they were through.
"Over here, guys." Blossom indicated a garbage dumpster.
Brick and Butch picked the man up, flew over the dumpster, and dropped him in. Blossom and Buttercup slammed the two flap lids over him. The four drifted back to the ground and headed back towards the bus station to wait for their next ride that would take them the rest of the way to Sucre. They looked around them in a panicked attempt to see if anyone else was following. They could hear festivities of some sort about a half a mile away.
"We gotta really be careful." Blossom stated. "This could get really ugly."
"You ain't kidding." Brick replied. He plopped down on the floor of the bus station and leaned his head back against a wall. "How much farther to Sucre?"
"About 350 kilometers from here," Blossom answered after checking their map.
"Why are we taking the bus again?" Butch asked. "What if somebody else follows us?"
"Because there's no train service from here and the plane was too expensive. Remember, Professor Gershwin said to conserve our money." Blossom explained as she looked around for a clock and found none. "Wonder what time it is." Their next bus was due at 2:45 p.m.
Butch leaned forward from his spot on the floor and got the attention of a man walking by.
"Excuse, señor, por favor, tiene la hora?" he asked.
"Sí, sí, las dos y media," the man replied and continued on.
"Gracias," Butch called after him. "Two-thirty." he translated for the others.
They continued to sit, waiting. After what seemed like hours, Buttercup stood up. She looked angry as she straightened out her dress.
"I'm going to find out where our ride is," she grumbled. "I'm sick of waiting." She walked towards the exit as Brick motioned for Butch to follow her. "Aw, man!" Butch complained. He did as he was asked, and trotted after Buttercup, catching up with her outside the gate. They saw several buses out front, but none was apparently theirs.
Buttercup, having noticed that Butch was with her, suggested, "C'mon, let's ask somebody. I hate waiting."
Butch spotted a young man further down the sidewalk from them with a duffel bag at his feet. Buttercup stayed back as Butch approached the man and spoke to him. She saw the man laugh and look at his watch. Butch then turned and headed back, shaking his head, to where she stood.
"He says time is meaningless. I guess late buses are nothing big here." Butch explained to Buttercup.
"Aw, man, this stinks!" she replied.
The two wandered through the row of buses and emerged into an open driveway. Buttercup suddenly stopped short as she noticed a group of men in military uniforms at the ticket counter. Butch ran into her with a grunt.
"What the --," he began, but Buttercup hushed him. She pointed to the military men across the driveway, knowing if they saw her and Butch, that the four of them would be in serious trouble.
"I don't think they saw us." she whispered.
As if he in fact heard her, one of the men turned to see her and Butch standing in the driveway. His eyes widened with recognition and he yelled to his companions who all turned the same way. Then the group started running towards Buttercup and Butch.
"Uh-oh!" Buttercup gasped.
Butch grabbed her by the hand and the two of them ran back the way they had come. They dodged the crowds now gathering to get on the buses and went back inside the station. They ran towards Brick and Blossom as the men behind them reached the front door.
"Get up!!" Buttercup yelled. "Run!"
"We're in trouble!" Butch added.
Brick and Blossom looked up just as the military men came bursting through the doors. The men pushed and shoved their way through the people in the station as they tried to chase after the four.
Brick and Blossom jumped up and ran after Butch and Buttercup. They headed toward the back of the station to find the rear door chained with a padlock on it. Butch and Buttercup slammed into it, bursting the lock and breaking the chain. They found themselves in a back street that ran behind the station. The parade they had heard earlier was now making its way past the spot where they stood.
"Come on!" Blossom urged them and ducked into the parade. The others followed her as she zigzagged her way up through the parade's participants dressed in bright costumes and face paint.
The men following them came into the street. There were hundreds of people lining the streets to watch the Diablada parade. Within the parade, Brick suddenly stopped short, surprised, as one of the party-goers blew alcohol out of his mouth and ignited it with a torch he held in his hand. As the puff of flames extinguished, Brick glared at the man. "Yeah, big deal, I can do that, too!" he shouted as he contiuned after the others.
One of the men chasing them pointed as he saw Brick's red hair and red baseball cap in the crowd. He and the rest headed in the same direction, elbowing their way through the crowd.
The parade turned right and the four stow-a-ways followed the flow. They passed a restaurant where there were several people wrapped in ponchos, apparently sleeping. They then passed a small shop with a display of a devil's head with a poncho draped over it and a large sombrero over its horns. Butch snatched the poncho and hat. He grabbed Blossom's shoulder, dragged her out of the parade, and forced her to sit in another shop's doorway. As Brick caught up, he grabbed Buttercup out of the parade route. He set her down in the doorway next to Blossom and grabbed the other end of the poncho as Butch tossed it to him. The Boys swung the poncho around the four of them as they crouched under it and Butch put the sombrero on top, fully hiding them from view.
The parade looped left and up the next street. The military men, having missed the Boys' disguise, went with it as it continued on.
They allowed a few minutes of silence before Brick dared peek out into the street. He let out a sigh of relief upon seeing the quiet street.
"That was too close." he stated.
"WAY to close," Buttercup agreed. "What was that parade for anyway?"
"Diablada." Blossom answered. "I think it's a pagan holiday, a devil's day. They dress up like demons and basically celebrate the times before the Catholics."
Suddenly, they heard the loudspeaker from the bus station. Butch sprang to his feet and threw off the poncho. "Let's go, that's our ride."
They ran around the station's side, climbed on the bus, and sat as far in the back as they could. Nerves began to get the best of them as they waited for the bus to pull out. Finally, in a blast of diesel fumes and a grinding of gears from the ancient bus, they were on their way.